Coffman said he was lucky that his house backs up to the golf course, but getting home was extremely painful. And he said he found it ironic that while limping home, a neighbor stopped to ask about the health care debate in Washington.

Coffman and his wife, Cynthia, rushed to an urgent-care center in a strip mall where X-rays showed he had, for the first time in his 54 years, broken a bone. He received a temporary cast and drugs for the pain, and he ponied up his $30 co-pay.

The next step: Frisco.

"My wife has a friend who is dating somebody who works in a clinic up in Frisco that specializes in these kind of injuries, usually from skiing accidents," Coffman said. "That Monday, we went up there."

The visit to the Steadman Hawkins Clinic wasn't covered by insurance, but Coffman said the $350 out-of-pocket expense was worth it because he wanted an expert opinion. The news was good: no surgery required.

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In picking his permanent plaster cast, Coffman skipped those with dinosaurs, teddy bears and soccer balls and settled on the stars-and-strips theme.

The other possible choice was camouflage, which would have been fitting.

Coffman was in the Marine Corps and Army. He served in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the current war in Iraq.

He'll be in a cast and on crutches for four weeks — he goes back to Congress around Jan. 19 — and then probably will be in a "boot" or walking cast for another month or so.

Coffman served in the Colorado legislature, as state treasurer and as secretary of state before being elected to Congress in 2008. Every year, he invites a slew of Republicans to his New Year's Eve party.

After a dinner of Chinese food, there are speeches, but Coffman had to skip one tradition this time.

Not all kids who play baseball are uniformed with fancy script across their chests, traveling to $1,000 instructional camps and drilled how to properly hit the cut-off man. Some kids just play to play.